Public Art, Private Prejudice ; Two Works of Christian Art Predating the Holocaust Raise Questions about Whether They Intentionally Contributed to Anti-Semitism

At first glance, a 20th-century mural and a 12th-century altar
cross have little in common. But the controversy each has provoked
reaches back into old Christian dogma itself, casting light on the
role such art may have played in fomenting anti-Jewish feeling.The
issues mirror those being debated over the Ten Commandments -
whether the US Constitution's First Amendment permits or prohibits
the commandments from being displayed in public places such as
courthouses - that will be taken up by the US Supreme Court in
March.The Boston Public Library, site of the mural "Triumph of
Religion," and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which acquired
the cross as part of its medieval art collection, have approached
their stewardship of these objects very differently. The decisions
made offer a case study in dealing with controversial religious
art.At issue is whether a public institution should display
religious (inthis case Christian) artwork that may malign or offend
people of another faith.This question gathers intensity in light of
the Holocaust. People today are far more conscious of the creeping
effects of intolerance. Societies are also far more pluralistic than
they were when John Singer Sargent began his mural or an unknown
craftsman carved the ivory cross.Two works, one doctrineBegun in
1890 and left unfinished in 1919, Sargent's mural series in the
library's Special Collections Hall incorporates a tradition that
depicts Christianity as ascendant over Judaism. Though a casual
visitor is likely to miss the significance of these images, one
panel shows a vanquished Judaism - personified by the female figure
of "Synagogue," a blindfolded old woman with a broken staff and her
crown falling off - a common image in European Christian art.The
panel caused a storm of protest from the Jewish community when it
was unveiled in 1919; a vandal even threw ink on it. Three years
later, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a law to remove
it, but the state's attorney general eventually declared the act
unconstitutional.Sargent, dismayed, never completed the final panel
of the Sermon on the Mount, which art historian Sally Promey says
would have shown the "Triumph of Religion" as culminating in the
ethical content of the sermon, thereby rendering the old Church/
Synagogue imagery obsolete. As for the charges of anti-Semitism,
Sargent told a Jewish publication, "My intent was not to harm
anyone."At Sargent's death, the state Supreme Court granted the
unpaid commission to the library rather than to Sargent's estate.
The money was to have paid for maintenance of the murals, but over
the intervening decades they deteriorated and were largely lost to
public memory.Until two years ago, that is, when the Boston Public
Library (BPL) decided to restore the Sargent murals as part of an
extensive building renovation. The Special Collections Hall was
reopened to the public in October.BPL president Bernie Margolis, who
is Jewish, views the restoration as a means of confronting the anti-
Semitism issue publicly. He was supported in this by a board of
trustees that includes author and historian James Carroll, whose
book "Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, a History" may
be the definitive study of relations between the Roman Catholic
Church and the Jews.Mr. Carroll has challenged the church to remove
from its teaching the doctrine of "supersessionism" that perceives
Judaism as having been rendered obsolete by Christianity.This
doctrine has been symbolized in almost two millenniums of Christian
art - such as the Sargent panel - by the female figures of
"Ecclesia" (Church) and "Synagoga" (Synagogue), with Church
portrayed as triumphant and Synagogue depicted as progressively
turned away from the figure of Christ - as bent, blindfolded,
decrepit, or with the Torah scrolls upside down."We believe that the
library should be a place for discussion - even for wrong ideas,"
Mr. Margolis says. …

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